This second edition of Government at a Glance more than doubles the number of available indicators of OECD governments’ performance. The indicators compare the political and institutional frameworks of government across OECD countries as well as government revenues and expenditures, employment, and compensation. They also include indicators describing government policies and practices on integrity, e-government and open government, and introduce several composite indexes summarising key aspects of public management practices in human resources management, budgeting, procurement, and regulatory management. For each figure, the book provides a dynamic link (StatLink) which direct the user to a web page where corresponding data are available in Excel® format. The report also offers two special chapters, on leveraged governance and on the policy implications of fiscal consolidation.

The 58 data sets of member and partner countries in this 2011 edition of Government at a Glance include the first ever international comparison of public sector pay for selected professions and public service occupations, which points to a fairly egalitarian pay structure in the public sector; estimations of country-specific fiscal consolidation requirements, which have been found to be large in many countries; the level of disclosure of private interests in the three branches of government; and the implementation gap of Open Government policies to promote transparency, efficiency and trust.

Achieving the most efficient and effective size and allocation of the public service workforce is an ongoing challenge for OECD member countries, where the compensation of government employees represented about 24% of general government expenditures in 2009 (see Indicator 8). Today, this challenge is exacerbated by a confluence of factors which include the fiscal pressures following the economic crisis, but also new public service demands resulting from population ageing and the possibilities offered by information and communications technologies. To face these challenges, careful workforce planning and strategic human resources management reforms help to ensure that governments continue to deliver quality public services while responding to the need to reduce or maintain budgets.